The concluding words of the śramaṇa
can be read as containing the kind of irony that Aśvaghoṣa himself
favours. But is the śramaṇa himself aware of the irony in his
words, or not?

I may be doing the śramaṇa a
disservice, but I suspect that there is an irony of which he is
aware, and an irony of which he is not aware.

The irony that the śramaṇa, like
any religious striver, knows is the embracing of poverty here on
earth for the sake of future riches, hopefully in heaven. Some hope!

The deeper irony may be that the
śramaṇa describes himself as nirāśaḥ, that is, being without
āśa (wish, desire, hope, expectation). In other words, while
striving in hopeful and expectant pursuit of paramārtha, the highest
object, or ultimate riches, he sees himself as being without any
expectation.

The striver, I suspect, is like those Zazen practitioners and Alexander teachers who delude
ourselves, who do not know who we are, when we see our Zen practice
as 無所得 (MU-SHOTOKU;
“not expecting anything”; see Shobogenzo chap. 87) , or think
that our Alexander work might not be in the thrall of any end-gaining
idea.

In Saundara-nanda Canto 17, it is true,
Aśvaghoṣa describes Nanda as being nirāśah,
without expectation:

Having attained to the seat of
arhathood, he was worthy of being served. Without ambition, without
partiality, without expectation (nirāśah); / Without fear, sorrow,
pride, or passion; while being nothing but himself, he seemed in his
constancy to be different. // SN17.61 //

But this description
comes after Nanda has realized paramārtha – the paramount aim, the
supreme truth/meaning, the highest object, ultimate value, ultimate
riches, the primary task, the one great matter – not while he is
striving in pursuit of it.

The compound paramārtha appears in
Saundara-nanda, from a quick search, four times – twice in the
words of the Buddhist striver (in Cantos 8 and 9), and twice in the
words of the Buddha (in Cantos 15 and 18).

Again, to him whose thinking is not
firmly fixed – in the matters of hearing, grasping, retaining and
understanding the supreme truth (paramārthāya), and in the matter
of mental peace -- / To him who easily changes his mind, joy in
dharma is not apportioned. // SN8.24 //

For
him who drags around a hurting, perishable body, there is no such
thing, in the supreme sense (paramārthataḥ), as happiness; / For
what he determines to be happiness, by taking counter-measures
against suffering, is only a condition wherein suffering remains
minimal. // SN9.40 //

Therefore disregarding what is not
helpful focus on what is helpful, / Which might be valuable for you
here and now and might be for the reaching of ultimate value
(paramārthasya). // SN15.19 //

"As a man of action who got the
job done and who knows the primary task (paramārtha-vit), none but
you, O crafty man!, should express this affirmation -- / Like a great
trader, having crossed a wasteland and got the goods, who affirms the
work of a good guide.” // SN18.50 //

The expression in the Lotus Sutra 一大事
(Jap: ICHI-DAI-JI), “the one great matter,” which Dogen
uses in Shobogenzo to refer to the practice of sitting-meditation,
may originally have been, in Sanskrit, paramārtha. Like so many key
Sanskrit phrases, paramārtha could be translated in any number of
ways. For a start, the dictionary gives five definitions of the
compound, viz: the highest or whole truth, spiritual knowledge; any
excellent or important object; the best sense ; the best kind of
wealth. EBC and EHJ have “the highest good” while PO goes with
“the supreme goal.”

In today's verse, then, paramārthāya
in the dative case could mean “with an [idealistic] view to the
highest spiritual knowledge,” or it could mean “for the sake of
the best kind of [material] wealth.” Either way, what it really means, to a
buddha-ancestor like Aśvaghoṣa or Dogen, in the final analysis,
is just to sit in full lotus without any expectation of getting
anything out of it.

So the meaning of paramārthāya in
today's verse depends on the intention and understanding of the
person who is saying it. Hence the relevance of the prince's question
in BC5.17, vada ko 'si – Say! Who are you?

If you were FM Alexander, you might say
that the paramount aim had to do with that matter of primary
importance which is the head-neck-back relation, or, in Alexander
jargon “the primary control of the use of the self.”

This, a stern Zen drill might think, is
Alexander baggage with which a bloke with his own agenda is weighing
down the original pure teaching of Gautama, Aśvaghoṣa and Dogen.

But come the revolution, everybody will
thank me for making these connections! (I live in hope.)

My point is that I know from Alexander
work that a gap – the wrong kind of separateness – is liable to
arise between what I feel to be an upward direction and what the
upward direction truly is. And this gap is a sometimes shocking indicator, or a
measure, of a gap between who I think am and who I really am. The more "tight and right" my sitting is, the wider is the gap.

Who was Aśvaghoṣa? I think
Aśvaghoṣa was a teacher who knew that gap very well and who, in
his writing, is inviting us to study that gap in painstaking detail.

For those of us who are not quick on
the uptake, to go at a rate of one verse per day might be too
ambitious.

VOCABULARY

nivasan
= nom. sg. m. pres. part. ni- √ vas: to sojourn , pass or spend
time , dwell or live or be in (loc.)